Judge tosses sex offender charge

2-11-2008 Louisiana:

A New Orleans man got out of jail today after a federal judge in Mobile dismissed charges that he violated a new federal sex offender registration law.

Chief U.S. District Judge Ginny Granade became the second judge to rule that a defendant could not be prosecuted under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act because a key element of the offense occurred before the law took effect.

Ex post facto prohibition established by the U.S. Supreme court case of Caulder -v- Bull 3 U.S. 386 (1798) which states:

"I will state what laws I consider ex post facto laws, within the words and the intent of the prohibition. 1st. Every law that makes an action , done before the passing of the law, and which was innocent when done, criminal; and punishes such action. 2nd. Every law that aggravates a crime, or makes it greater than it was, when committed. 3rd. Every law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed. 4th. Every law that alters the legal rules of evidence, and receives less, or different, testimony, than the law required at the time of the commission of the offence, in order to convict the offender. " eAdvocate

Lavoid Macio Kent had spent more than six months jailed without bond at the Baldwin County Corrections Center on the charge.

"I'm very happy about it," said Assistant Federal Defender Chris Knight in praising Granade's decision. "I think it was a correct ruling."

Prosecutors did not return phone calls seeking comment this afternoon, but they have appealed a similar case in which U.S. District Judge Kristi DuBose ruled in favor of a Prichard man in December. The two rulings in Mobile take opposite positions from those in Florida in which federal judges have allowed prosecutions under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, leaving it to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to resolve.

In 2006, Congress passed the law, which makes it a crime punishable by as many as 10 years for people convicted of certain sex offenses to move to another state and fail to register as a sex offender.

Kent, 37, pleaded guilty in 2000 to first-degree sexual abuse in Mobile County. Law enforcement authorities arrested him in May and discovered that he had failed to register as a sex offender in Louisiana when he moved to New Orleans in 2004.

Since Kent's interstate travel occurred two years before Congress passed the law, Granade ruled in an order late Friday, he cannot be prosecuted.

The principle involved, enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, is known as ex post facto. It essentially means that a person cannot be held accountable for conduct that occurs before it is against the law. ..more.. by Brendan Kirby, Staff Reporter